Filth - Irvine Welsh

The book is bedecked with a drawing of a large fat ugly pig?s face and perched on the pig?s head is a traditional blue policeman?s helmet. A rather unsubtle hint as to the story within! THE PLOT The book is written in the first person and follows the life of Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson, a policeman from Edinburgh. Robertson is not a nice policeman. Robertson is not a nice man. He deliberately causes emotional pain to strangers, friends and family. He takes pleasure in ruining people?s belongings, relationships and careers. He is certainly not what we could call a sympathetic hero and so the reader must view the novel as an ...  Read the complete review

Filth - Irvine Welsh Description: Author: Irvine Welsh / Genre: Fiction I am a big Irvine Welsh fan and so when this book came out, I rushed out to buy it, with high hopes that it would be up to the standard that he had set with his previous books. You cannot miss this book, it has a malevolent, smirking picture of a pig on the front, glaring out at you while wearing a policemans hat. The book introduces us to Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson, a policeman from Edinburgh. Robertson has a large tapeworm in his his stomach who offers insight as the book goes on, into the depraved character that is Robertson. Imagine someone full of ...  Read the complete review

Bruce Robertson is a Detective Sergeant in the Edinburgh Police Force. It's coming up to Christmas and he's got his annual Amsterdam trip all booked up in a couple of weeks when a racist murder is committed on his patch. Given the police's reputation for not being too politically correct, and the fact that the victim is the son of diplomats, it is imperative that the murder gets solved quickly. Robertson, and his conscientious female colleague and figure of hate, Amanda Drummond, are assigned to lead the team on the case. Trouble is, Bruce Robertson doesn't care. More than that, in fact. He has a hatred of black people and a loathing for anything ...  Read the complete review

By the time 1998 came around, I was thoroughly fed up of Irvine Welsh. The fantastic "Trainspotting" had been followed by works of gradually decreasing merit, culminating in the abysmal "Ecstasy", and Welsh himself had become a media whore, popping up at every music biz party, writing laddish drivel for "Loaded" and generally revelling in his role of literary enfant terrible/working-class-boy-made-good, instead of actually justifying his reputation with any decent writing. That's why I've only just got around to reading "Filth", and I'm kicking myself for not having done so a lot sooner. For "Filth" ...  Read the complete review

Filth truly represents Welsh's literary skills at their best. Not for the faint hearted due to the graphic descriptions of dirty habits, Filth is a tale of a policeman whose wife has left him with little consideration for the fact that his hygiene skills leave a lot to be desired! In reality DS Robertson is a truly disgusting leading man - the kind you would never wish to meet in fact - but as the story progressing the reader forms a strange affection towards his plight. A racist, backstabbing, uncaring, womanising and generally filthy slob is probably a complimentary way to describe our hero! The novel uses a lot of Scottish colloquialisms which ...  Read the complete review